Honda Legends' Keith Amor put in a brave ride in Saturday's opening Superbike race at the Isle of Man TT bringing his Fireblade home in fourth place despite suffering with the shoulder he injured in Wednesday evening's practice session.
Amor was able to put in two 128mph+ laps for his best ever result in a TT Superbike race and after a solid practice lap the previous evening, he decided he was fit enough to race although he wasn't sure if he would be able to go full race distance.
Nevertheless, Amor got stuck in from the start and a solid opening lap of 128.182mph saw him slot into 8th place, a position he maintained on lap 2 despite lapping slightly quicker at 128.254mph. Struggling more with a gearbox problem than with his shoulder, Amor still jumped up to fifth at the end of lap three, half race distance, and when Guy Martin retired from second place on the fifth lap he was promoted up the order into fourth and it was here where he finished, almost a minute clear of fifth placed Michael Dunlop.
"The shoulder was ok for the first four laps and although it obviously wasn't at its strongest it wasn't giving me any trouble but for the last two laps it started to give me a bit of grief so I just brought the bike home," said Amor.
"There was little strength in it by the end but, hopefully, some more work on it by the physios between now and the next race should see me a lot closer to where I wanted to be. There was a really strong head wind along Sulby and up on the Mountain but the hardest part of the race was the gearbox problem that I had and it was a real struggle as I wasn't sure what the bike was going to do.
"I thought about stopping at the pits but I decided to press on and, luckily for me, it held on until the finish. I was glad that I did persevere as a few of the boys dropped out and that allowed me to move up the order so to finish 4th, all things considered, is a pretty good result.
"The bike was handling so much better, the best it's been all week, so a big thanks to the team and, if the shoulder improves like I hope it does, we shouldn't be too far away in the Senior."
